General Atlantic will be looking at opportunities to increase its stake in Jio Platforms and its alliance with the digital unit of Reliance Industries is for the long haul and not just till the initial share sale of the company, said a top official of the Indian unit of the US private equity player.
“We look forward to partnering with Jio, and GA seeks to look for opportunities to back our winners,” Sandeep Naik, Managing Director of General Atlantic’s business in India & Southeast Asia, told ET. “…with Jio, we found the right platform that can help in digital opportunities.”
Naik’s comments come on the back of the announcement earlier Sunday that the PE firm is set to invest Rs 6,598.38 crore in Jio Platforms for a 1.34% stake.
Naik said that this was a long-term investment and not keeping short-term milestones like Jio Platforms’ expected IPO in mind. Analysts expect an IPO for Jio Platforms in around two years.
“We are long term investors and any of these short-term events, we are not looking for,” Naik said. “With Jio, you have mobility as the platform on which you can now bring all the digital products and services. So you can look at what would this company look like in five years with a bouquet of services that they can layer on top, and hence we truly believe that Jio is the digital platform opportunity to build the digital economy of India.”
Read: General Atlantic wants to pick early bets in India as the fund stays bullish on technology sector
GA was attracted by Jio’s content play platform with their broadband connectivity reach.
“Then opportunities around health care is also exciting given what is happening during Covid times and digital health. Then the opportunity around commerce and what it could potentially do,” added Naik.
Interestingly, GA had invested in Facebook from 2011-2013 and the latest investment in Jio Platforms comes about a month after the US social media major said it will buy 9.9% stake in the Reliance Industries unit.
This alliance took two years to finalise and for General Atlantic it meant backing a firm that had “access and distribution to the belly of the Indian market”, Naik said.
“You can’t build a large scalable consumer tech companies just focusing on the top…………You need to reach out to the consumers of Bharat’s middle class and the lower middle class and deliver digital products and services to them,” said Naik.
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